The proposal, protesters claimed, will create a two- or multi-tier Internet, which would favor established media giants, freezing out startups and the average consumer.

The protest, which attracted between 30 and 50 people, was originally organized by Free Press, one of the consumer groups that has protested the relationship between the two companies.

Protesters submitted a list of what organizers said was 300,000 signatures of people opposed to the proposed arrangement, which would allow Google and Verizon the freedom to add new services on the Internet that would not be constrained by network neutrality policies. The wireless industry would also be exempt from net neutrality, a term used to describe a world in which every Internet service and Web site is given equal weight and equal priority over the others.

Google public-relations representatives appeared and said they would accept the signatures inside Googles headquarters, which they later did. Google is also accepting comments on the proposal on its public policy blog.

Protesters gathered at a small public park near one of the buildings on the Google campus at around noon on Friday. A splinter group from RagingGrannies.com formed elsewhere on the campus, distracting reporters and some protest-goers with their vintage formal outfits.

Once it began, however, the protest mimicked the language of other protests, from the chants "What do want? Net neutrality! When do we want it? Now!" and repeated chants of "Don't be evil!" to signs and placards that echoed the "Don't be evil" slogan.

Jenn Ettinger, a media coordinator from Free Press who served as the unofficial coordinator of the rally, explained that Google came into being on the back of net neutrality, so shutting the door on it now unfairly hurts others. Free Press chartered a bus that drove down from San Francisco with about a dozen protesters on board.

The Internet is different from radio or TV because, on the Internet, we can say whatever we want to say and see whatever we want to see, and that's the way it should remain, Ettinger sad.

Many Americans don't even have broadband, said Greg Slepak, one of the protesters. In rural areas, he said, it's often cheaper and easier to build wireless towers. But the Google and Verizon proposal would give unfair preference to some over others.

Google owes its existence to the openness of the Internet, he said.

James Rucker, executive director of ColorofChange.org, said he did not want to see the Internet turn into something like broadcast TV or even radio, where companies that don't pay licensing fees are relegated to a secondary position. History tells us that companies only do things when motivated by money or regulated by the government, he said.

The protest itself attracted a number of people from all walks of life, from an anti-war cancer survivor to a number of students and people who identified themselves as private citizens. Justin Papa, a student at San Francisco State University, said that the Google-Verizon protest was the first protest he had ever attended.

"I'm here to support the cause," Papa said. "I don't want to be constrained."

"I use the Internet every day, and I want it to get better, not worse," Papa added.

The RagingGrannies.com group was originally formed as a social movement focused on ecological issues, but sees its mission as one designed to protect the powerless, said Robin Weamans, an attorney and, yes, a grandmother.

"The Internet is the greatest tool of democracy that ever existed," Weamans said.

The protest wrapped up in about an hour. The tone was pleasant, with no confrontations with Google security, who politely asked protesters not to block the driveway, a request with which protestors complied. After it ended, the Free Press bus pulled out, Googlers continued to ride their cruiser bikes around the campus, and hikers enjoying a late lunch dotted the nearby hill.

Mark Hachman Mark joined ExtremeTech in 2001 as the news editor, after rival CMP/United Media decided at the time that online news did not make sense in the new millennium.
Mark stumbled into his career after discovering that writing the great American novel did not pay a monthly salary, and that his other possible career choice, physics, required a degree of mathematical prowess that he sorely lacked.
Mark talked his way into a freelance assignment at CMP’s Electronic Buyers’ News, in 1995, where he wrote the...
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